Although this invention is generally applicable to test systems and methods in general, it is particularly suited for semiconductor device testing.
As is known, semiconductor devices are typically manufactured many at a time as “dies” on a semiconductor wafer, after which the dies are further processed before being shipped to customers or installed in various products. That further processing may take many forms.
In perhaps the most common post-manufacture processing, the dies are probed and tested while still in wafer form. Thereafter, the dies are singulated from the wafer, and the dies that passed the initial probe testing are packaged, burned in, and further tested. In another common process, the dies are not packaged after being singulated from the wafer but are further tested and often burned in to produce “known good dies,” which are unpackaged dies that have been fully tested. In more advanced processes, the dies are burned in and fully tested while in wafer form.
In all of these exemplary post-manufacture processes, as well as other scenarios in which electronic devices of any kind are tested, there is a need to control testing and/or exercising of the dies or other electronic devices.